Just back from the funeral of Dean Smith, his former mentor at North Carolina, Larry Brown spoke with the media on Friday at SMU's practice gym.

Here's some of what Brown had to say about Saturday night's UConn-SMU showdown -- an ESPN College GameDay feature (not to mention a meeting of the frontrunners for AAC player of the year)::

(on Kevin Ollie leading UConn to a national title last April ... and an amusing comment about Allen Iverson)



Brown continued:

"I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Nobody’s like Allen. Allen Iverson, every day I think about him and realize what he accomplished. There will never be another one like him. But I have a lot of admiration for Boatright. He’s such a competitor. Allen was a great competitor. He’s got a will to win. Our little kid (Nic Moore) has a lot of the same qualities. It’ll be fun watching them going after each other.”

(on Saturday night's bout being a College GameDay feature on ESPN)

“I’m a big fan of GameDay. The people that are here, and Jay Bilas, Seth (Greenberg), Jason (Williams) -- it’s hard for me to talk about Duke guys -- but they do a wonderful job for college basketball. I think it’ll be neat for our students. We didn’t know how to storm the court when we beat Connecticut. I’m sure we won’t know how to act with GameDay here, but hopefully we’ll be good enough where this will be an annual occurrence.”

(on UConn this season)

“They were great last night. They would’ve beaten anybody, I think. They’ve got the best shot-blocker in the country ... God, he’s unbelievable. (Daniel) Hamilton is one of the best young players I saw. They’re pretty versatile. Then they’ve got Boatright. You’ve got a kid that’s won before. When things go bad, you can look to him, he can bail you out on the offensive end. And then on the defensive end, you’ve got somebody that goes after every shot. I was walking today with some of my staff. If you ask me to take one guy in our conference, besides some of the kids you hear mostly about, I’d take that center who corrects everything, every mistake you make. And he plays with passion. I think they’re only gonna get better. Hamilton’s still young, and he’s figuring it out. I like their team.”

“I think you need shot-blocking in college. With the 3-point line, everybody has to extend. You’re gonna make mistakes, and you’re gonna need somebody to protect. I think that’s a real big factor for their success. And he even made a couple of jumpers last night.”

STERLING BROWN:

“They’re gonna come in angry, we’re gonna come in angry, too. We beat them twice, we didn’t make the tournament. That’s our ultimate goal this year, to make the tournament, so they’re just another team in our way.”

(on Boatright)

“Whoever’s guarding him, Ryan (Manuel), Nic (Moore), whoever’s guarding him is gonna have to stick him tough. We’re gonna have to stop him and get to the shooters.”

CANNEN CUNNINGHAM:

“They played really well against Tulsa. I don’t think they’re better than us. We’ve just got to get better today in practice, prepare for the game and see who can get it tomorrow.”

(which team has the bigger target on its back Saturday night?)

“I think we are, just because we just took first place in the league and everybody’s trying to get to the tournament. Right now, we’re in a better position than them to get to the tournament, and they need some big wins. So I’d say it’s on our backs.”

The red pom-poms were placed at just about every seat at Moody Coliseum on Friday afternoon. SMU will be sporting its red uniforms, as well (UConn will be playing in its home whites). A sold-out crowd will greet the Huskies for Saturday's 2 p.m. game as the newly-renovated arena is christened.

The Huskies will be walking into a hornet's nest, but they say they're ready for the challenge.

“I think that’s going to help us out,” said Ryan Boatright. “If we come out like we did against Houston, with a crowd like that and the intensity, we’re going to get blown out of the gym. It’s going to be embarrassing. If we come out there and see how many people are against us, and we’re coming off a loss, we’re going to be ready to play.”

And, Boatright added, falling to 0-2 in the American would be “just terrible all the way around – bad for the league, bad for the record, bad for RPI."

"A ride home with K.O., 0-2, would be terrible.”

No doubt.

*** Getting the win won't be easy. Not only will the crowd be hyped, but the Mustangs are pretty good. They're coming off a road loss to Cincinnati in their AAC opener Wednesday, but SMU (10-3) is a deep team (10 players play double-digit minutes) led by its strong guards and domineering defensive big men. Yanick Moreira, a 6-11 junior, and 6-9 sophomore Markus Kennedy have helped SMU hold opponents to a mere 35.7 percent shooting, second best in the nation. They're also holding foes to 61.4 points per game (second in the AAC) and lead the league in rebounding margin (plus-9).

*** Among those expected in the sellout crowd are Dikembe Mutombo and (possibly) Allen Iverson (though it appears Iverson may not make it; two of his uncles may be there, instead). The two players were teammates with Kevin Ollie on the 2000-01 Eastern Conference champion Philadelphia 76ers. Also on that roster were George Lynch and Eric Snow, who are currently on SMU's staff. And, of course, that team was coached by Larry Brown, now in his second year at the helm with the Mustangs.

“That was the most special team I’ve been on,” said Ollie. “Now that team was tough. We had a couple of guys that didn’t get the basketball a lot, let Allen Iverson do his thing – George Lynch, Eric Snow, Aaron McKie, Dikembe, even when Theo Ratliff was there. There were some tough guys, mentally and physically. That’s how I want my teams to perform, too.”

This is becoming a bit of a tradition at SMU. Last year, when the Mustangs hosted Tulsa (coached by Danny Manning) nearly all of the 1988 national championship Kansas team led by Manning and coached by Brown came for the game.

*** Ollie wants his entire team to come out with more fire than it did in Tuesday night's loss at Houston.

“We want (Shabazz Napier) to come out with that intensity the whole game, and DeAndre (Daniels) to pick it up, I could go down the list,” Ollie said. “I’ve got to pick it up. I might have to smash two clipboards instead of one.”

*** If UConn needed any more incentive to make this a special season, a trip to the Dallas Cowboys’ mammoth new stadium a few miles down the road in Arlington on Thursday may have done the trick. The stadium (a.k.a. The Death Star) is home to this year’s Final Four in April.

“I know I had a couple of moments where I looked around and said, ‘Man, wouldn’t it be great to have UConn on that big JumboTron up there, or Niels Giffey’s name or Shabazz’s name called out in the starting lineup, with their pictures up there,’” Ollie said. “Hopefully the guys got a little feeling of that.”

They did.

“We see what it can be like, we went down there on the field, we know the court will be there on the 50-yard line,” said Boatright. “Just to see it right there and look around, it’s going to be an amazing feeling if we get back there.”

*** After going with the same lineup for their first 10 games, the Huskies may be employing their third different starting lineup in their last four. Tyler Olander practiced with the first group Friday, though Ollie said it'll still be a gametime decision as to whether he or Amida Brimah starts.

*** What made Brown such a special mentor to Ollie?

“I wasn’t playing a lot and he’d go down and be with us playing 3-on-3 and letting the other coaches coach Allen Iverson. The time he spent with the other guys, he made us all feel important. That’s the one thing I try to do with my team, I want to make sure even the walk-ons know how important they are to our team. That’s one thing I learned from him and from Coach Calhoun – just being that type of person that’s detail-oriented and wants things done right. One thing he always said is play the right way, whether you’re up 30 or down 30. That’s what I try to have my guys do on a day-to-day basis.”

Of all the head coaching jobs Larry Brown has had over the years – and there have been 13 of them, between college basketball, the NBA and the ABA – his first one very nearly was at UConn.

Brown was Dean Smith’s assistant coach at North Carolina in 1967 when Jim Hickey, the former UNC football coach who had just taken the athletic director’s job at UConn, offered him the Husky job that had been just vacated by Fred Shabel, who had left for Penn.

Brown, 26 at the time, politely declined.

“I was just a little bit nervous about me being that young,” he recalled on Friday morning, prior to leading his newest team, SMU, in practice. “It was my second year as a coach. Even though, playing for Coach (Frank) Maguire and Coach Smith and Mr. (Henry) Iba (in the 1964 Olympics), having an opportunity to coach your own team – coach let me coach the freshman team, even though I was involved with the varsity – I just thought maybe I was too young. So, I passed it up.”

Instead, UConn hired Burr Carlson, who was subsequently fired after two poor – (11-13, 5-19) seasons.

“I wouldn’t have been 5-19,” Brown promised.

In 1969, Dee Rowe was hired and helped lead the program back to respectability. And, of course, when Jim Calhoun took over in 1986, UConn went on to unprecedented success – three national titles, four Final Fours, etc.

For all his success – induction into Naismith Hall of Fame, only coach to win NBA and NCAA titles – Brown doesn’t look back on what could have been had he taken the UConn job.

“Nobody could’ve done what Jim (Calhoun) did, what Dee did,” Brown noted. “Except Dee played that damn 2-3 zone.”

In fact, Brown has few regrets at all when it comes to his coaching career. Still, the one thing he might have done differently is stay in the college game a bit longer.

“I’ve been so lucky,” he said. “Coach Maguire and Coach Smith and Coach (John) McLendon were really mentors for me. Coach Smith spent 36 years at North Carolina. If you go over his first five years – the scandal when he got the job, there were a lot of issues – they were not smooth for him. I would’ve liked to have been able to stay at one place. Even though I love the pros, I wouldn’t change one of those jobs for anything, I just think I’m more of a college coach. But I think as a pro coach now, you’re coaching college kids.

“I would’ve liked to have had the opportunity to have families come back, ex-players come back. That’s why I love being here now. (Saturday), we’re going to have a lot of ex-players coming back. I used to take a lot of pride in Coach Smith remembering everybody’s name, every family member’s name. There was some continuity to being a Carolina player.”

There will be a family atmosphere on Saturday against UConn. Some of Brown’s former NBA players – including Allen Iverson and Dikembe Mutombo – are expected to be at the game. And, of course, so will UConn coach Kevin Ollie, who played with Iverson and Mutombo under Brown with the 76ers in 2000-01.

"I’m proud of Kevin, I admire what he’s done and what he’s going to continue to do,” said Brown. “But, it’s like playing against Danny (Manning), there’s no fun in that. But, the one nice thing is, when you play Connecticut, you know you’re in a big-time conference, playing against the type of team that I was hopeful we’d have the opportunity to play when we came here.”

First off, some injury news to report:

Shabazz Napier sat out the latter part of today's practice as a precaution. He suffered a sprain to his left foot during Wednesday's win at South Florida and it's still nagging at him a bit. However, Napier -- who watched the last half of practice from the sidelines with an ice pack around his left knee -- should be OK for tomorrow's St. John's game, per George Blaney.

The news isn't as good on Roscoe Smith, who sprained his left wrist against USF and has sat out the last two practices. Smith's wrist is still a little swollen, though X-Rays have been inconclusive. He's "day-to-day," according to Blaney.

That could be a tough loss for UConn, as Smith would seem to be a strong candidate to guard St. John's fab frosh Moe Harkless. All Harkless did on Tuesday agianst Providence was go for 32 points and 14 rebounds. His scoring total was the most ever by a freshman in his Big East debut, surpassing a guy named Allen Iverson (1994) and Troy Murphy (1998).

“There’s been a lot of good players who have started in this league who haven’t put those numbers up," Blaney marvelled.

How good is Harkless (whose de-commitment from UConn has been well-chronicled on this blog)?

“I don’t think there’s anything that he doesn’t do,” Blaney said. “He’s big, he can handle, he can shoot it in or out, put it on the floor. And he rebounds – 14 rebounds (against Providence) shows me big-time stuff. Most importantly, he believes in himself.”

Added Andre Drummond, who played against Harkless in high school: “He’s like a Jeremy. He plays effortlessly, he just scores.”

*** UConn boasts significant size and depth advantages over the Johnnies, who have just eight scholarship players and don't dress a player over 6-8, and will make a concerted effort to get the ball down low to Andre Drummond and Alex Oriakhi.

*** St. John’s proved it can run and gun, with 91 points against Providence on Tuesday, but can also slow things down effectively.

“They want to run on your mistakes,” said Blaney, “so we need to take care of the ball and take good shots.”

The Red Storm certainly looked impressive in that win over Providence. But remember, it was Providence.

*** Surprisingly, UConn is looking to start off its Big East slate at 2-0 for the first time since 2003-04. It's also looking to end a two-game losing skid to the Storm, and the losses were ugly: 89-72 last year at MSG, and 73-51 two years ago in the Big East tournament.

Of course, the Johnnies have just one returning scholarship player (backup guard Malik Stith) back from last year's team.

Blaney still sees similarities between last year's St. John's team and this one.

“They play with the same energy," he said. "They’re an exceptionally confident, cocky group. After two wins against us in the last two years, I expect St. John’s to be good.”

*** Blaney said Jim Calhoun is going "berserk" not being able to coach these three games, but said he hasn't had any contact with him. As a matter of fact, he can't, per guidelines of the suspension.

Of course, there's a marked difference between when Blaney runs a practice or game and when Calhoun does.

"We're still running the same style," said Jeremy Lamb. "It's a little different not hearing him on the sidelines."

Blaney did, however, raise his voice a couple of times in practice today over UConn's lethargic defensive play.

Said Drummond: “Coach Blaney’s stepping up really well, he’s doing a great job. I really commend him for taking that position. He’s doing so well with it. A lot of people wouldn’t be able to take that role and do what he’s doing.”

*** Neither head coach will be on the sidelines tomorrow. Steve Lavin will miss his eighth straight game as he recovers from prostate cancer surgery.